Sicilian Mafia

Maybe we don't understand how much everything around us seems to be losing its momentum and cheapening, and I hope we don't suddenly realize it by some "accident." Lawlessness is a widespread phenomenon and, worst of all, no one has any answers for how you deal with it.

The recent police operations in the wake of last week's mob-style killing in the Athens suburb of Neos Kosmos reveal that criminal networks thrive on specific sources of illegal wealth, including the smuggling of fuels and tobacco. 

The mafia prospers in areas where the state has consistently failed to establish control, despite the significant cost to the public treasury.

It is a common secret from Russia to Latin America and from Eastern Europe to the Western Balkans that hooliganism and common crime often tread common ground; that hard-line associations of fans of the rituals of war and violence are sometimes the reservoirs from which extremist formations and organized crime recruit executioners.

Without debate, with 19 votes "for", without a single "against" and "abstentions", the Legal Committee of the Parliament approved in the second reading the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, introducing a mechanism of control over the Prosecutor General.

Murders, often mafia-style, have become a regular occurrence in Albania. Experts say the perpetrators have no fear of the police.

Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia, whose shots of bullet-riddled bodies captured the dark world of the Sicilian Mafia, has died aged 87.

Prize-winning Battaglia, who would speed to the scene of murders in the 1980s on her Vespa to bear witness to the violence, blew away the romanticized and sanitized image of Cosa Nostra.

A once powerful Albanian oil company boss, Rezart Taci, listed as wanted by prosecutors in Albania, has told the media he is ready to face his accusers in his home country.

The most famous line uttered by the protagonist, Vito Corleone, in Francis Ford Coppola's stunning rendition of "The Godfather" is: "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse".

Montenegrin government representatives at the Origin of Property draft law presentation. Photo: Government of Montenegro

At the presentation of the draft law, Abazovic said Montenegrin society was ready for such an "anti-mafia law".

"The week ahead of us will be quite interesting", Mr. Aleksandar Vucic tweeted and added: